Communication

I blogged earlier about the new initiative that my church had the chance to support in India. In a nutshell, it became apparent that a vast majority of the over 1,500 people that we reached during our 2012 trip were illiterate. Even if bibles were available in their language, Assamese, it wouldn't do any good because they simply can't read. It also wasn't helpful for us to quote scripture as we talked to them because it was referring to a written word that they couldn't understand.

Since the dawn of civilization until a relatively short time ago, a vast majority of people passed on knowledge through the art of storytelling. In much of the underdeveloped world, this tradition still exists. The oral tradition is the way that nearly all knowledge, beliefs, history, and custom is passed between peoples and one generation and another. e3 has worked on techniques to use this tradition, one that the people we are trying to reach are comfortable with, in order to share the gospel. In addition to sharing the story of Christ in a way that is familiar to the people you are working with, the technique is also a safer method for the missionaries as it doesn't require the carrying of a bible or even an evangicube. In many regions of the world, including parts of India, having either of these items can create problems with authorities or militant believers of the native religions.

I found this approach interesting for a couple of reasons. First off, e3 took the time and effort to find out from the native pastors what tools they needed in the mission field. To often outsiders don't take the time to find out what is actually needed. When my church board approached me about finding a project in India to support financially, the original idea was to do something like dig a well for fresh water. Instead of pursuing that, I asked Charles Gulla, one of e3's Indian leaders, what his people needed. I did this because I remembered hearing a story about a multi-million dollar chicken processing plant that westerner's built in Afghanistan in order to "help" the local people. The problem was that there was no infrastructure to transport these beautifully cleaned and processed birds, no refrigerators in the homes of the people that would buy the processed poultry, and no money in their pockets to purchase the chickens if they wanted them. Westerners had spent tremendous resources to do something that the locals simply didn't need and failed to address the needs that actually existed.

Secondly, reading and researching this initiative made me realize just how much we have lost the ancient art of storytelling in our modern world. In this day of computers, televisions, texting, and video games, we even seem to have lost the simple skill of conversation. It's sad. I'm not that old really, but I remember my uncle's telling me stories of their youth and nights with family when a television wouldn't even be turned on. I'm just as bad about my reliance on technology to pass the time. On a recent trip to visit some very dear friends, it wasn't an hour after we were in their home that we were all centered around the front of a television. Even the first step of storytelling, simple conversation, seemed to elude us. That's something I'm definately going to work on.

Anyway, here is a video from e3 that tells about the power of storytelling as a tool to reach an oral people.

 

For more information about e3's storytelling initiative, you can check out their site here: http://www.e3partners.org/orality#/about

 

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